Editorials

As Gotham and The Flash enter into the budding television space that Arrow and Agents of SHIELD seem to dominate, the questions of cohesion begin to arise. Marvel and DC are natural rivals in both comicbooks and films at this point. It looks like television will be no exception. Currently, it would be very hard to argue that DC is not wiping the floor with Marvel when it comes to these weekly hero series. However, in 2015 with the inclusion of the Netflix programming Marvel may catch up or even surpass DC overnight. The two companies have always gone about things in different ways and their show strategies differ as well.

So with no surprise we get news last week that a Teen Titans show is in the pipeline and headed for the cable channel, TNT. That's yet another one of DC's properties headed to the small screen and on good rumor Supergirl is headed to television sooner rather than later as well. So what does all this mean to the average viewer and average comicbook fan? I have said many times on the show that I am not to keen on superhero TV shows but I can't argue with the success of The CW's Arrow. Seemingly building off of that triumph soon comes The Flash. The two shows are connected and that will likely benefit both. However, the other shows based on DC comic properties: Gotham, Constantine, Teen Titans, and Supergirl will all likely not be joined to the "Arrow-verse." Compare that to Marvel's strategy of one cohesive universe of movies and television series which grows further starting in 2015 with Daredevil on Netflix. So is one formula better than the other? I don't think its fair to say just yet. Arrow is clearly the best of all these shows but some stiff competition is coming very soon.

I personally prefer the cohesive method to the disjointed one. Look at the boost Agents of SHIELD had due to the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Undeniably that show got markedly better after the Chris Evans led sequel hit the theaters. However, the show will likely suffer in season 2 from not being able to keep up that movie level of suspense. DC's properties will likely flourish on their own to differing degrees but in the end they have painted themselves into a corner that Marvel is in with their movie universe; limited rosters and crossover potential. Now we all know the history as to why Marvel is in that situation, but why DC would purposefully put themselves there is beyond me.

Another issue with DC's television setup is timelines. Teen Titans brings with it some Batman mythos and that on its own is great. However, Batman causes some issues here. So with Teen Titans we have early 20 something Nightwing, Gotham gives us Bruce Wayne (aka Batman) as a young kid, and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice gives us 40 something year old Batman. That's a lot of timelines for average TV/movie goers to manage. The argument of "that's how comics are as well" is a poor one here in my opinion. The average person watching TV isn't the same as the average comicbook reader so confusion and frustration will happen.

So what do you think? Are both strategies equally valid or do you prefer one over another?